“States pull back after decades of get-tough laws”

The title of this post is the headline of this extended AP report from this weekend.  Here are some excerpts from an effective piece that details legal reform developments in numerous states:

For the last four decades, the laws of the land were all about dropping the hammer on crime by locking away criminals for a very long time…. Nearly half the country and the federal government have adopted some kind of hardcore laws, while “get tough on crime” became the mantra of politicians running for everything from the local city council to the president of the United States….

But after cracking down and incarcerating hundreds of thousands, cash-strapped states including New York, Kentucky and Kansas are pulling back. They face an uncommon confluence of dire economics and prisons bursting at the seams and several have changed, in whole or in part, their stances on hard punishment.

Their reasons: the get-tough laws didn’t always work, especially when it came to slowing recidivism, the revolving door of prisoners who get out, mess up again, and come back. There were legal challenges, and questions about whether the punishment always fit the crime.

And of course, there’s the money. In tough economic times, the expensive laws are increasingly being deemed expendable…. “The rapid rise in prison populations over the past two decades has now collided with the fiscal crisis,” said executive director Marc Mauer.